


We Are The Lost Ones

by doctormccoy



Category: The Hobbit (Jackson Movies), The Hobbit - All Media Types, The Hobbit - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Angst, Apology fic, Banishment, Commission fic, Emotionally Constipated Thorin, Guilt, M/M, Post-Battle of Five Armies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-29
Updated: 2014-04-29
Packaged: 2018-01-21 07:14:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,097
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1542197
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/doctormccoy/pseuds/doctormccoy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Believing the banishment of Bilbo Baggins still stands, Fíli and Kíli tend to the severely injured hobbit in secret, unaware that Thorin's gold madness has cleared, leaving behind the guilt and anguish of believing his hobbit died in the Battle.</p>
            </blockquote>





	We Are The Lost Ones

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ThilboBagginshield](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThilboBagginshield/gifts).



> Spoilers for the third Hobbit movie. Commission fic delivery for bilboings/ThilboBagginshield!

He didn’t deserve it.

Fíli had to remind himself of this vicious truth every time the urge to confess his and Kíli’s secret to Thorin rose up and begged for attention. 

Their Uncle had not earned the truth, and so, Fíli would not give it to him.

He brushed a hand through sweaty brown curls and winces at the blazing heat of the hobbit’s skin, pressing the cold, damp cloth to his forehead once more. How many long nights had he and Kíli watched over Bilbo’s sleeping body, desperate to bring him back from the brink without alerting anyone to his continued presence in the mountain? Thorin had banished him, after all. Fíli wouldn’t put it past the mad King to let the hobbit die in the muck and filth of the battlefield. 

It had taken him and Kíli hours to find the small, ruined body of Bilbo Baggins. They knew roughly where he had fallen, of course, had seen the orcs around them and Thorin fall of wounds that simply appeared as if by magic. Bilbo had saved them from certain death, and now they had to return the favor.

But finding an invisible hobbit in a battle field strewn with bodies was a difficult task for even the best of trackers. Ultimately, it had been Kíli whose sharp eyes had spotted an unexplainable empty space between the body of an orc and the dirt, and after some careful exploration they were finally able to remove the ring.

The same ring that was now locked up tight in a box in the top drawer of his dresser until Bilbo awoke. 

Fíli didn’t like the ugly expression that had formed on Kíli’s face at a single brush of the smooth gold, or the cold, detached, empty way it made him feel just looking at it, like nothing else in the world mattered.

Bilbo mattered, and Kíli, and their Mother, who was surely now on her way to Erebor with the first wave of immigrants, mostly metal workers and carpenters needed to rebuild the ruined kingdom, from the Blue Mountains. They mattered far more to Fíli than the featureless ring, or the piles of lifeless gold and jewels beneath the Mountain. 

“You have to hang in there, Bilbo Baggins. You have a home waiting for you,” Fíli murmured to the unconscious hobbit, checking the numerous, heavily bandaged wounds for any sign of infection. 

It had been almost a fortnight since the Battle, and he had still not woken from his slumber. His wounds were healing and there was no sign of infection, but the fever remained and still he did not wake. It was as if Bilbo did not _want_ to wake up. 

“I can’t blame you, after the things he said to you.”

It would take a blinder dwarf than most not to see the unique bond between his Uncle and their hobbit, one borne out of a growing respect and admiration for one another since their escape from the goblins. Fíli had an acute understanding that hobbits, even brave ones like Bilbo Baggins, didn’t throw themselves in front of enormous orcs and slavering wargs for just anyone, no. Bilbo Baggins was in love with Thorin, and when his emotionally constipated Uncle actually apologized to their burglar, and held him like that in front of the entire company, he also knew the dwarf was in love with Bilbo Baggins, as well.

It wasn’t entirely unheard of, for such bonds to form across species lines, though more typically it was seen between Elves and Men. But just because there was no precedent for a dwarf and a hobbit together did not mean it would be unwelcome. 

And Fíli dared anyone to try and tell his pigheaded Uncle, or their fiery burglar, what they could and could not do.

That was before the gold sickness started to take root in Thorin, and before the desperate Bilbo made the mistake of taking the Arkenstone and giving it to Bard and Thranduil as ransom. Fíli and Kíli had both been on the hobbit’s side when it came to avoiding a battle, but even they felt a little stung by the implied betrayal in those actions. Simple stone, sure, but it still had the power to unite the seven kingdoms of the Dwarves, and for Bilbo to give it away to their enemies, whether he understood its significance or not, was hard for them to forgive.

But he’d saved their lives when he could have abandoned them to their fate, and that was a debt that they had to repay.

While Fíli agonized over his concerns for Bilbo, there was another dwarf in Erebor suffering from a similar despair. 

Thorin Oakenshield, King Under the Mountain, was wondering if all this was really worth it if he didn’t have his burglar sitting beside him.

He stares blankly at the empty space next to the great stone throne of his ancestors, and wonders if this gaping chasm in his chest was divine punishment from the Gods for his pride and avarice. He had lost himself to the madness of his line, after swearing for years that he was above it, and for his crimes the sentence was death.

Not death of the body, but of the soul.

Physical death was much too lenient of a punishment. But this ache inside him, this cold, wearying dread that his hobbit was lying dead somewhere out in the wreckage of the battlefield was almost too much to bear. 

The Arkenstone shining above his head was a cold, detached presence.

Even the most priceless artifact of their people seemed dull and ugly with the realization that Bilbo was gone, taking all the light and laughter in the world with him. Thorin did not smile anymore, and ate and slept just enough to survive, but it was a meaningless, empty survival. 

He signed the documents Balin brought him, and left the final authority for decision making to Fíli, his heir. He knew they did not believe he had recovered from the gold sickness, and so it comforted them that Fíli was acting Regent. Thorin was, for now, the figurehead and the signature on the bottom line so there was no dissent among the people over whether Fíli should be named true King. 

The Thorin of old might have bristled with anger at such an insult to his pride as a King and a Dwarf, but, the Thorin of now knew the cost of such conceit and self-adulation. Fíli was a good ruler, and if he was happy to make decisions in Thorin’s name, then Thorin could learn to live with it, as well, until the company and his advisors found their faith in him again.

He did not deserve their trust after losing his sanity to the allure of gold and jewels, despite years of promising he would fight the sickness of Durin’s line. 

Unable to bear sitting in that enormous, soulless room any longer, Thorin stands in a flurry and rushes back to the safe solitude of his rooms, ignoring any attempts at conversation from other dwarves along the way.

But the silence that faces him when he closes the door behind him is just as condemning as the echoing emptiness of the throne room. It screams of his failures, and his betrayal, in the absence of a warm smile and curls the color of rich honey. 

Thorin does not eat his supper that night. 

He wonders how the rest of middle earth can keep on living when he feels as if life has come to a complete stop. There was no color left in the world, not for him. 

Another day passes.

Another day where Bilbo lies sleeping in Fíli’s bed, motionless and silent. The fever has finally broken, and the golden haired Prince finds himself missing it. At least then there were signs of life left in the hobbit, but now.. Now Bilbo just sleeps.

And sleeps.

And _sleeps_.

His wounds continue to heal. His eyes remain closed. He grows thin from the lack of food, his body subsisting solely off the liquids and ground up bits of food mixed with water they are able to get down his throat.

Another day passes.

And now Fíli starts to notice that Bilbo is not the only one wasting away in front of him.

Thorin has grown thin and pale with every hour since the Battle. His beard is unkempt and his clothing is dirty and uncared for. It was as if he had simply stopped caring, and the servants had informed him that his meals went largely untouched. He spent his days holed up in his rooms, alone, refusing contact from anyone. 

Finally, at Balin’s, and Kíli’s urging, he goes to visit the Uncle he has struggled to forgive in these weeks of watching Bilbo suffer in his bed. He’s shocked to see the complete destruction when he opens the door to his quarters, however, and the notable absence of any signs of wealth or comfort. 

He had expected that Thorin’s thinness and lack of hygiene came out of an obsessive attention to the wealth he had now acquired. Eating, sleeping, and bathing had simply come to be secondary needs when compared to counting the gold and silver in their coffers.

But there was nothing. The silver and gold that had once decorated the room was gone, leaving the room featureless and bare. Thorin himself was seated on a plain wooden chair by the fire and staring blankly at it, as if perplexed by what it could mean. His beard had grown even wilder and his hair was greasy and tangled, curling limply around his slumped shoulders, and his clothing was worn and covered in stains. 

It was as if his Uncle had simply given up on living, like his soul had already moved onto the Halls and his body just hadn’t had the sense to roll over and die, yet, and now Fíli felt the burning need to know _why_.

“Uncle… You must eat. Kíli is worried, and I… I am worried, too. You will die if you keep going this way,” he says finally, and almost winces at how loud his voice sounds in the empty room. Thorin flinches and looks up at him with hollow, tired eyes, as if he hadn’t expected him to really be standing there.

“It is what I deserve,” is all Fíli gets in reply, and the toneless defeat in those words sets his teeth on edge and makes the hair at the back of his neck bristle. 

“For what crime do you sentence yourself to death, Thorin?” he demands in a low growl, and finds himself further frustrated by the complete and utter disinterest Thorin has in his words, as if it were exhausting just to sit there and hear them. 

The lost look on his Uncle’s face catches him off guard, and he stands there, flummoxed, when he looks sideways at the fireplace once more.

“For letting him die believing that I despised his existence.”

If Fíli had been surprised before, he’s all but choking on it, now. There could be no misunderstanding on who Thorin was talking about.

“You… You mean Bilbo Baggins,” he managed to croak, and his heart drops to the pit of his stomach at his Uncle’s small nod, lips touched with the faintest of wistful smiles.

“My burglar. I sent him to his death, and now Mahal is punishing me for my selfish greed and pride.”

He looks back to Fíli again and his eyes are so empty it’s chilling to the young Prince.

“There is no warmth left in the world. Food and wine taste of blood and ash, and it’s as if all the color and light has gone from my eyes. There is nothing left for me if he is not here by my side,” Thorin whispers, startling slightly when Fíli suddenly crowds into his space, his arms thrown around his skinny shoulders and his face buried in his hair.

“Uncle… Oh, Uncle, please forgive me for what I have done.. Please bear me no ill will for this unjust pain I have caused you,” his nephew is whimpering, and Thorin can feel the splash of his tears against his skin. He is confused at this plea and reaches up, tentatively, to pat his hand through Fíli’s hair, trying to offer some sense of comfort to the miserable dwarf.

“What pain you have caused me I have surely deserved tenfold, my son,” Thorin sighed, and he worries that is was the wrong thing to say when Fíli’s embrace grows even tighter.

“No, you haven’t. Maybe in the beginning, yes, you deserved to be punished, but not like this.. I never meant for any of this, but, I have a chance, now, to make it right again. For both of you.”

Fíli’s voice is a fierce, determined whisper, and Thorin finds himself pulled to his feet by capable hands. 

He submits to the rough, perfunctory bathing with silent confusion, letting Fíli scrub the sweat and grime from his skin and hair as the servants brought up tub after tub of hot, cleansing water. His beard and hair are neatly cut and braided once more, and he’s dressed in clean clothes in familiar blues and blacks. His skin is still waxy and pale from exhaustion and poor nutrition, but, he looks less like the living dead and a bit more like the dwarf Fíli remembered.

Thorin hesitates, though, when Fíli starts to lead him from the room. He belongs here, in exile, where he can cause no more harm to those he loves. All it takes is one firm glance from his nephew to make his defenses crumble, however, and it’s on unsteady feet that he follows after the smaller dwarf.

If he had any inkling of what to expect, though, it doesn’t come close to what he actually sees when Fíli finally unlocks and pushes open the door to his quarters. 

At first he’s confused, squinting as his eyes adjust to the brightly lit room he’s led into. He sees Kíli, who has stood up suddenly from where he’d been sitting by the bed, and Thorin has one brief moment to wonder why he would be sitting there of all places before his eyes alight upon the small, fragile creature laying in the bed before him.

It’s as if all the air has been sucked from his body, and he doesn’t remember taking the ten short steps between the door and the bed until he’s suddenly there, standing beside the body of Bilbo Baggins and looking as if he’d seen a ghost.

“We thought you were still gone with the madness. We… We worried he was still banished, and that you would force him out if you knew,” he hears Kíli saying in a desperate voice in some far off, distant world, but Thorin can do little more than stand there and stare, watching the steady rise and fall of his hobbit’s chest.

Bilbo Baggins was alive.

It was no surprise that his legs gave out from underneath him, and it took both of his nephews to lift him back up into a chair beside the bed, so limp with shock was he from this revelation.

Several long minutes pass before he’s finally capable of doing more than staring and gasping for air, and when he starts to take notice of the bigger picture he sees both dwarves hovering nervously on the other side of the bed. Kíli looks upset and on the verge of crying, whereas the whiteness of his face and the creases digging between his brows are the only sign of Fíli’s inner turmoil. 

“How long?” Thorin finally asks, and his voice sounds strained even to him. It’s Fíli who answers him, grimly resigned to whatever response they get.

“We found him not long after the Battle. He had suffered grievous wounds protecting us during the fighting, and we knew he needed immediate care if he were to survive the night. There was no time to take him to Bard or the elves, so we smuggled him up here, and tended to his wounds in secrecy. Your last order before the Battle began, after all, had been to banish him and name him as a betrayer. We had no cause to believe this had changed just because the Battle had been won,” he explained in a low murmur, his mouth set in a firm line.

“We regret causing you so much pain in these weeks since, Uncle, but I do not regret the choices we made. You were not the same dwarf we had known, and you had given us little reason to believe anything would be different after the Battle ended. We were protecting a dear friend when he needed our help.”

Thorin is silent as he reaches out to brush a wild brown curl back from Bilbo’s forehead, watching as the hobbit did not stir at the contact.

“Has he woken at all?”

Their hesitation is all Thorin needs to know he has not.

“Please leave us. I am not angry with you for what you have done, but I need time and space,” he sighs, and their relief is palpable. He supposes he had no right to chastise them for what they had done, for they were right in worrying he was still gone with the sickness. It had been the wisest choice to make at the time, and Thorin did not begrudge them for it.

“His wounds are healing and there is no infection. He simply just… won’t wake up. Perhaps he’s just waiting for the right incentive,” Fíli says in parting, and there’s a warm weight on Thorin’s shoulder before it’s gone, and he is left to the silence of the room, save the soft, steady breathing of his hobbit.

He bows his head and touches his forehead to the back of Bilbo’s hand, cradled carefully between his palms like it would break if handled too harshly. The hobbit was so terribly thin, and Thorin stroked his finger over the bandaged palm, wishing there was some way to heal all the hurts he had caused him.

“I’m sorry, for everything I have done to you. You have given me nothing but kindness and love and I threw it back in your face like it meant nothing to me. I let my vanity and my greed get the best of me, and you paid the price for it. I only hope that it is not too late to make amends for the hurts that I have caused you, but you need to wake up if I am to someday earn your forgiveness,” he whispers, and the words sound hollow even to him. What good were words spoken to an unhearing body? What good were _words_ when Bilbo slept like the living dead, and Thorin was the cause of his suffering?

He would have to earn his forgiveness, and that would start with taking care of him while he slept. 

Bilbo was moved to his room and Oin gave him a thorough physical to determine why it was the hobbit still slept, but, like Fíli and Kíli, he was forced to conclude that he slept merely because he had chosen not to wake up, yet. His wounds were healing steadily and he was being better fed and cared for by the experienced physician, but still he slept on. Thorin was by his side day and night, except when his duties as the King pulled him away, and each passing hour only added to his fears that Bilbo may never wake up.

Was it cruel for them to let him linger if his spirit had truly moved on to the next world?

But his fears would be proven unjust.

The day Bilbo woke up was a rather unremarkable one. Thorin had returned from a session with the Council on establishing trade with the rebuilding city of Dale outside the Mountain, and was dressing for dinner after a quick bath. It had become normal for him to talk to Bilbo’s sleeping form as he moved about the room, lacing up his tunic and working his hair into the familiar braids. He ate better, now, and slept and bathed regularly. He had to take care of his own body, so that he could take proper care of Bilbo’s.

He was so engrossed in describing his frustrations with the more conservative members of his Council, and their unwillingness to talk trade with any but the other Dwarven kingdoms, that he didn’t notice the way Bilbo’s breathing changed, or the faint creaking of his bed moving. 

It’s only when a faint, exhausted voice cuts into his monologue that he realizes something has changed.

“I’m starving. Is there anything to eat?”

Perhaps not the most meaningful of first words, but, to Thorin it was like the finest poetry. 

He turned slowly, hardly believing, to see Bilbo propped up against the mound of pillows behind him, smiling - _smiling!_ \- at him, as if he were actually glad to see him.

“You-“

Thorin stalled, unable to find the words stuck in his throat because all that mattered was Bilbo was awake and looking at him like _he_ was the strange one in this situation.

“You’re alive.”

It sounded rather stupid when he said it out loud, because of course he was alive. The arched eyebrow he gets in response is evidence enough of that.

“I would think that is quite obvious, but I won’t be for long if you don’t find me something to eat.”

And Thorin scrambles to obey the request, flying to the table like he had grown wings and going to Bilbo’s side bearing a plate mounded high with every kind of food he could grab from the lunch he had been brought, and a jug of water. 

He never would have thought that watching Bilbo eat would ever be a magical experience, but he was unable to do more than sit there and stare as the hobbit worked his way through every single thing he had been given. 

“How long was I asleep?” he asked finally, once he had settled back into the pillows with a satisfied expression on his thin face.

“A.. A very long time,” Thorin finally conceded.

Five weeks, six days, thirteen hours, and forty-seven minutes.

Give or take.

But who was counting, really.

“But none of that matters, now, because you’re.. you’re _here._ ”

Thorin’s voice cracked and he fell forward to press his forehead to Bilbo’s hand, clutching at the thin fingers like a lifeline.

“I know I can never truly be worthy of your trust, or your forgiveness.. but will you please let this pathetic excuse for a dwarf try to earn them once more?” he begged in a low whine, and when that hand pulls out of his own he goes stiff, waiting for the final blow. It was what he deserved and nothing short of what he expected.

Still, when a small hand rests on the back of his head and pets through the damp curls of his hair, Thorin almost forgets how to breathe with the desperate, wild hope seizing his chest. 

“Did you know you can still hear when you are being spoken to, when in an unending sleep?” Bilbo murmurs, almost as an afterthought, and the implications in those words make Thorin want to evaporate into the floor. Bilbo had heard him? Had heard every single whispered apology and desperate plea to wake up, to just open his eyes and give Thorin the chance to make it up to him, to let him spend the rest of their lives showing him just how cherished he was to the dwarf, that he would give him anything in the entirety of creation if only he would just wake up?

He’s almost too overcome with emotion to be embarrassed at that – almost.

“I don’t really need monuments to my bravery, or clothes of silk dripping in jewels, though,” Bilbo hums thoughtfully, and Thorin looks up from behind his hands at the hobbit, who is smiling at him with such tenderness it breaks his heart.

“What.. What is it you need?” he croaks, and falls in love all over again with the way Bilbo’s eyes crinkle with silent laughter, and the life that dances inside them.

“You, you daft old thing. I only ever needed you.”

And when Thorin surges up to kiss him, he can still taste the smile on his burglar’s lips.


End file.
